With the world’s most valuable company — and the funds’ favorite investment vehicle — set to report earnings after the markets close today, the eyes of Wall Street are once again on Apple.
The stock has been on a tear lately, up nearly 20% this year and more than 133% since April 2013, when slowing iPhone sales growth and fear of what Wall Street was calling the “law of large numbers” brought the stock down to a split-adjusted $55.79. The stock closed Friday at $130.28.
It’s possible that bad news this afternoon could bring the stock’s momentum to a halt, but that seems increasingly unlikely.
With iPhones selling faster than expected, Apple Watches selling faster than Apple can make them, and rumors swirling about everything from new music and TV services to futuristic Apple cars, it’s not going to be easy to harsh this stock’s vibe.
Every one of the 38 Apple analysts polled by Coins2Day — 24 professionals and 14 amateurs — expects the company to report double digit growth over last year’s stronger-than-expected second quarter. They’re calling, on average, for revenues up 24.5%, earnings up 33.4% and iPhone unit sales up 32.6% year over year.
The amateurs as usual are more bullish than the pros. They’re looking for a 38% EPS bump compared with the pros’ 29%. But even the pros concede that their estimates may be too conservative.
We’ll find out who was closest to the mark about half an hour after the markets close. I’ll be watching the results come in and eavesdropping on the 5 p.m. ET (2 p.m. PT) analysts call. You can too. Here’s the link:www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/earningsq215
Below: The individual analyst’s estimates, with pros in blue and indies in green. Stay tuned Tuesday morning for the quarterly ranking of best and worst analysts.
Click to enlarge.
Thanks once again to Posts at Eventide‘s Robert Paul Leitao for pulling together the Braeburn Group numbers.
Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter at @philiped. Read his Apple (AAPL) coverage at coins2day.com/ped or subscribe via his RSS feed.